Category: Acton University

This year, we are offering something new at Acton University: our “Lunch and Learn” series. While registered participants can enjoy these more informal talks at no additional cost, these events are also open to the public. On Wednesday, June 18, Judge Andrew Napolitano will be speaking on “Do We Still Have a Constitution?” and on Friday, June 20, Christian author and musician Andy Crouch will offer “The Common Good in Seven Words.”

Renowned artist and teacher Mako Fujimura will be showing and speaking about the film, “The Golden Sea,” which chronicles his creation of the art piece by the same name. Fujimura will be speaking on Thursday, June 19. Below is a clip to whet your appetite.

Today on the PowerBlog, we’re continuing our Radio Free Acton series featuring people who have attended Acton University and their experiences. As we close in on the deadline for registration for AU 2014, we hope that as you hear from people who have been impacted by the experience of Acton University, you’ll consider registering for AU 2014 and making the experience your own this year.

Today’s podcast features Father Hans Jacobse, an Orthodox priest and the founder of the American Orthodox Institute, who describes how he discovered Acton and came to be a participant at Acton University over the course of the last few years. He describes how the experience of Acton University gives him an opportunity to interact with people who are creatively engaged with culture all over the world – a “creative explosion,” as he calls it – and explains why those four days are so inspiring for him.

What does the Acton University experience have to offer a newly-graduated college student? Thomas Wheeler, from Minnesota, attended AU 2013 on recommendation from his dad. In this podcast, Wheeler talks about how the message of human dignity that he heard at Acton University has informed his life choices. Enjoy the discussion.

The core economic challenge facing the American experiment is not income inequality per se, but rather stratification and stagnation — weak mobility from the bottom of the income ladder and wage stagnation for the middle class. These challenges are bound up in a growing social crisis — a retreat from marriage, a weakening of religious and communal ties, a decline in workforce participation — that cannot be solved in Washington D.C. But economic and social policy can make a difference nonetheless, making family life more affordable, upward mobility more likely, and employment easier to find.

Ross Douthat, op-ed columnist at The New YorkTimes and author of Bad Religion, will be joining the faculty of Acton University 2014 and featured as a plenary speaker. His writing has been called “prophetic;” Douthat has a keen eye for culture, religion, economy, politics – the milieu of American life. In Bad Religion, Douthat examines how America is becoming a nation of heretics, and the harm that is causing. David Wilezol of The Washington Timeshad this to say about Douthat’s book:

“Bad Religion” is a superb documentation of America’s crisis of faith, and a persuasive apology for the restoration of Christian orthodoxy in America. Mr. Douthat theorizes that the cause of America’s economic, political and moral slump has been a societal departure from our Christian roots, but the cause hasn’t been the fashionable atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. (more…)

The focus of Acton University is scholarship: the participants spend their days learning from a faculty that is wide-ranging, accomplished, and masters in their chosen fields. The Acton Institute is pleased that Judge Andrew Napolitano, currently a Fox News Senior Analyst, will be joining us to teach “Freedom of Conscience and the Constitution.”

Judge Napolitano, author of numerous books including It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom and Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom, was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, when he returned to private practice. Napolitano also taught law for 13 years. Now, he appears daily, Monday through Friday, on the Fox News Channel. (more…)

Over the next few weeks, the PowerBlog will be featuring people who have attended Acton University and their experiences, via podcasts. By hearing how Acton University has affected a variety of people in so many ways, we hope to encourage those who’ve never been to Acton University to consider registering for AU 2014.

Today’s podcast features Becki Essner, a teacher at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Becki has attended Acton University three times, and has been enriched each year. In fact, she says the experience “touched my very soul.”

Please take a few minutes to listen to Becki talk about her time at Acton University.

Makoto Fujimura, in many ways, defies being labeled. He is an artist. He is an author. He is a speaker. But none of these completely capture who Fujimura is. Perhaps one way to understand Fujimura is to take a look at a commencement address he made at Biola University:

To ask “what do you want to make today?” is not an idealist’s escape from reality. To ask “what do you want to make today?” is a quiet resistance against the destructive fears dominating our world; refusing to submit to the inevitability of corruption in our ideologies… (more…)

Can we boil down the idea of “common good” to just 7 words? Andy Crouch is willing to try. As executive editor of Christianity Today, and author of Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, Crouch is all about culture, human flourishing and humanity’s common good. Crouch told Acton’s Manager of Programs Mike Cook a bit of what he plans to discuss at this year’s ActonU:

‘The common good’ provides a basis for personal choices, shared effort, and social policy deeply rooted in fundamental Christian convictions. It also defies easy partisan categories. We’ll explore a seven-word summary that helps make the common-good tradition widely accessible and concretely practical: ‘the flourishing of the vulnerable in community.'”

The audio of four lectures from Acton University last week focusing on topics related to the Orthodox Christian Tradition — two by Fr. Michael Butler, one by Fr. Gregory Jensen, and one by Fr. Hans Jacobse — is now available to stream free of charge on Ancient Faith Radio (here).

Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg took to the podium on the final night of Acton University 2013 to deliver the closing plenary address for the conference. Below, Gregg closes the conference with a reflection on modern threats to religious liberty, and how the faithful can respond.